Identifying and categorizing the strategic components of sports diplomacy in facilitating Iran's international relations with the Arab countries of Oman and Bahrain (Persian Gulf region)

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
Zohreh Sabzi 1
Reza Saboonchi 2
Arash Dousti 1
1 Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Physical Education, Borujerd Branch, Islamic Azad University, Borujerd, Iran
2 Associate professor of sport management, Borujerd Branch, Islamic Azad University, Borujerd, Iran.
10.22034/ntsmj.2024.718997
Abstract
Sports diplomacy is a strategic strategy for a government to reach intellectual, cultural, etc. agreements. Therefore, it is important to identify and categorize its components, especially with Iran's neighbor. Therefore, the aim of the current research is to identify and categorize the components of sports diplomacy in the international communication channels between Iran and the Persian Gulf region (the study is Oman and Bahrain). . The current research is a type of mixed research and has two qualitative and quantitative parts. In the qualitative part, interviews were conducted with experts (16 experts) in the field of sports and politics, and the strategic components of sports diplomacy in facilitating relations were extracted with the technique of theme analysis. 70 codes for strategic components were extracted from the interview. In order to check and confirm the coding process, Lavshe's validity and experts' opinions were used, which was confirmed according to CVR and CVI values. In the quantitative section, using the output components of the qualitative section, a questionnaire was designed and distributed among the activists in the field of sports and politics in the country. Due to the unknown sample size in this section and according to Cochran's formula, a minimum sample size of 384 people was determined, which was collected and used for exploratory factor analysis. The reliability of the quantitative part was evaluated using composite reliability indices and Cronbach's alpha, and its validity was evaluated using extracted variance (convergent validity). In a small part, exploratory factor analysis techniques were used in SPSS software. The output of the results of this section classified 70 codes extracted from the qualitative section into 14 main components, and in the second stage, the classification of these components into 4 main groups, including the causal conditions (drivers) of sports diplomacy at the international level; soft sports strategies (use of human resources in sports); Hard sports strategies (fundamental structural changes in sports) and constructive and positive consequences of sports diplomacy.
Keywords
Diplomacy of Oman and Bahrain
facilitation of international relations
Hard sports strategies
soft sports strategies
sports diplomacy
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